Rugby Is Dumb, But It Sure Is Fun To Watch

My son Griffin, decided to try a new sport this year.  After 12 years of baseball starting with T-ball at age 5, he decided to hang up his spikes and bat this year to try a new sport.  Rugby.  Rugby is a high school club sport.....meaning that is played in high school, but not a sanctioned high school sport. Out of the entire team of players when the season began, he had never even seen 98% of his teammates let alone met any of them, even though he went to Centennial High with all of them.  And meeting new people is just where the fun was beginning.

It was a whole new sport for not only Griffin, but for most of the other players and us parents too.  Who knew when you took the ball out of bounds, you got to grab a small teammate and throw them in the air to try and get the ball from the other team.  Jump balls in basketball would  be way more fun to watch if you could do this.

And don't even get me started on the scrum....bunches of kids all in a big pile pushing each other till someone finally comes out of the pile with something that looks like a football, but really isn't.  And all the players wear really short shorts...which is funny because that is soooo not the style for kids in high school.

I'm slowly learning the rules and strategy for the game, but the main reason I love watching is for the hitting.  This game is just as violent as football, but there are no pads and no helmets.  It definitely cuts down on leading with your head when it comes to hitting, and tackling, but yet the tackles are just as hard hitting as they are in football.  Rugby players are tough!  And I really love that you can tell the players who have had football experience, they are not afraid of hitting and tackling at all.

The talent of some of the teams in the treasure valley is pretty good.  The team that Centennial played a couple weeks ago is combined of Rocky Mt. and Eagle players and is one of the top ranked teams in the nation.

At the very least this should help Griff, as he gets ready for his final year of high school football and maybe take that next step of college ball....we can all only hope.  Plus he absolutely loves rugby.....hey is there a college scholarship for rugby?